Joining the Team
by patientalien
Summary: Scott Lang is confused. This is not a new state of being for him. Thor does nothing to alleviate the confusion. ENDGAME SPOILERS


Scott Lang is confused. This is not a new state of being for him, of course, he's been confused for years now. But now he's even more confused, because all of a sudden it's five years in the future and half the universe has apparently turned to dust because of this dude named Thanos and _Tony Stark_ is helping to build _Scott's_ time machine, and there are magic rocks involved? Or something? The most anyone has explained to him about what's _actually_ going on had been Thor, and his explanation of the, uh, angry sludge? - hadn't been very clear. Scott may be confused, but he's not stupid. The way everybody is talking about and around Thor in hushed whispers makes him think that maybe Thor hasn't always been so… whatever _that_ just was. Not that it hadn't been absolutely the coolest thing to listen to Thor ramble about somebody named Jane - but maybe it wasn't cool, because nobody else seemed very happy about what Thor was saying or how he was saying it. And then Thor got upset, and Stark stepped in, and everybody kind of left after that because it felt weird and awkward watching Iron Man try to get the god of thunder to sit down. Which seemed like a not-good thing, by the way. But nobody will just explain anything outright to him, so he's left to try and figure it out for himself. And, like, he _gets_ it, everybody is on edge and dealing with their own stuff and he's not even _really_ an Avenger or anything, but damn! He could be a lot more helpful if literally any single person here would just fill him in a _little_.

It's with this thought in his head that Scott has found himself wandering through the common area of the Compound during a lull in the brainstorming sessions. Ducking into the conference room they'd been in earlier, he calls Cassie to tell her he's okay, that he loves her, that he misses her, that he'll be home soon. He still can't quite wrap his head around it; five years gone. Five years of Cassie thinking he'd vanished along with half the population. And now, a chance to make it right. With the freaking _Avengers_ and everything! Just, wow. Scott _really_ hadn't thought this was how his life's trajectory was going to go _at all_.

The sound of ice cubes rattling and the slurp of something being sucked through a straw almost makes him jump out of his skin; he hadn't realized he wasn't alone in the room. And he really probably should have, because Thor isn't exactly an inconspicuous guy. He's sucking down the remnants of what looks like the Bloody Mary he had requested earlier, which Scott kind of quirks an eyebrow at because Thor hadn't seemed like he'd particularly _needed_ a Bloody Mary earlier, but then again, nobody tells him anything.

"Jeez, you scared the shit out of me!" he informs Thor, putting a hand over his heart to demonstrate how close he had been to full cardiac arrest. It's a bit of an exaggeration, of course, but eh. "How long have you been there?" He must have been there the whole time, because Scott _knows_ he would have noticed Thor's entrance regardless how how involved in his phone call he had been.

"Mmm, since…. This much ago," Thor replies thickly, holding his finger up to the side of the glass to demonstrate the fact he had been in the room since the glass had been mostly full. "Which one are you again? I can't keep all the new people straight." He pushes his sunglasses up for a brief moment to get a better look at Scott, but then lets them drop right back down. "Stark and his floor to ceiling windows," Thor grumbles.

Scott chuckles, rubbing the back of his head and looking over at the aforementioned floor to ceiling windows, which are letting in a large amount of really nice natural sunlight. Of course, Scott hasn't been drinking since he got here, so he's sure he's in a better spot to appreciate it than Thor is. "Yeah, sunlight, blah, right?" he jokes weakly, not really sure what else to say. That's _Thor_, for crying out loud! He's in a room, in the _Avengers Compound_ having a _conversation_ with _Thor Odinson_ about windows. What the hell?

"Not really a fan," Thor replies with a shrug and loud sucking of the straw in his glass.

Ohhhhh-kayyyy, this is quickly turning awkward. "Well, I'm Scott. Lang." Thor doesn't react at all, so Scott adds, "Ant-Man?" Nothing. "I get really big sometimes?"

Thor shakes his head. "Sorry, never heard of you," he grunts. "I don't think." He's not rude about it, exactly, just matter-of-fact. Then again, from what Scott has managed to gather, Thor hasn't really been around at all the past five years, and even before that he had been _somewhere_ not on Earth and it had been a bad time. He has no idea of the details, or even the broad strokes, just that Thor hadn't been around for the rift between Cap and Stark, he killed Thanos, disappeared, and now he's back looking like the _before_ picture on a workout video infomercial.

"Yeah, no, I get that a lot," Scott replies.

He and Thor stare at each other for moment. Well, Scott knows he's staring at _Thor_ but it's a little impossible to tell where Thor's is directing his gaze behind the sunglasses. "Well," Thor announces after a moment, slapping his thighs as hefts himself out of the chair. For a brief moment Scott thinks he might topple over, but Thor rallies. "Are you coming?" he asks, turning his body towards the door and his head towards Scott.

Scott takes a few hurried steps to catch up. He'd overheard Natasha and Steve- _Captain America _\- talking about how they all need to keep an eye on Thor, and nobody else seems to be around right now. Well, Scott is around, and Thor seems to expect company, so… "Where're we going?" he asks, following behind Thor, who seems to prefer keeping close to the wall as he makes his way down the hall.

"For a drink!" Thor calls over his shoulder jovially.

"This," Thor says, the blue eye Scott is _pretty _sure is Thor's real one sparkling (once away from the windows, Thor had shed his sunglasses) "is Asgardian mead." He plunks down a huge jug that looks like it's made of gold. Scott feels his jaw drop and he reaches out to touch it because, wow, _Asgardian mead_. "I left it here when we fought evil robots. Have you ever fought evil robots, Carl?"

"Uh, no, and it's Scott, actually."

Thor's expression wavers. "S'probably some of the last of it," Thor adds. "Maybe on Vanaheim or Alfheim." He seems to shake himself out of a sudden sadness and gives Scott a wink. "It'll make you think you're immortal."

Thor pulls out a glass and pours a hearty measure, pushing it across the counter to Scott. "Uh," Scott says, because he didn't realize he had been chosen to be Thor's drinking buddy. "You know, I'm on some pretty strong antibiotics right now, so I really shouldn't," he lies, pushing the glass back along the trail of condensation it had left behind.

Thor takes the refusal in stride, grabbing the glass for himself in one hand and the jug in the other, shuffling unsteadily to the kitchen table. Scott trails behind, surreptitiously glancing around to see if there are any _actual _Avengers around who might be better able to handle whatever this is. Nope, alone. Well… This might be a good a time as any to try to get some answers.

"So," he says, sitting across from Thor. "I'm new here, and I'm not really up to speed on everything that's happening. Plus I was tiny for the past five years, so…" He lays his hands on the table, palms up. "Could you maybe fill me in on what these Infinity things even are?" At worst, Thor will refuse. At best, Scott will get a good story out of the god. Either way, it keeps Thor occupied. That can only be a good thing, right?

Thor's expression brightens almost immediately. "Oh yeah I can _definitely_ explain the Infinity things," he assures Scott, taking a deep draught from the glass and then setting it down so he can use his hands to gesticulate, which he does a little excessively as he speaks. "So okay, first've all, the things are stones, and my grandfather and my father and probably my great-grandfather, I don't know, our family had issues, anyway, so they had the stones. And then they hid the stones. And the Time stone went to a wizard, and the Tesseract went to Loki and so did… the mind stone and, um, uh, and he got them for - for - _that guy_ and I couldn't _save _him…"

Scott feels the grin on his face that had formed when Thor had started speaking begin to fade as Thor continues to speak, his voice choking off and raising nearly an octave in tone as he rambles about his dead brother. Scott remembers the attack on New York, of course, and Thor has all but confirmed Loki's involvement with Thanos - _that fucking guy _\- but the way he talks makes it seem like… like there had been something worth trying to save. And he sounds just completely devastated. He drains the glass and closes his eyes and Scott is a little afraid he's going to pass out on him but Thor simply sighs and opens them, blinking down at the table. "Uh, you okay, Mr. God of Thunder, sir?" Scott asks, unsure of how Thor prefers to be addressed. He doesnt think they're on a first-name basis, considering Thor has no idea what Scott's even _is_.

Thor sniffs and wipes back of his hand across his face before looking up with Scott with a smile that could only be described as 'the fakest thing Scott has ever seen', and he had once taken Cassie to an off-brand wax museum. "Of course!" he says with a wavering voice. "Of course I'm okay." He eyes the jug and refills the glass, sloshing a bit of it onto the table. "Y'know," Thor muses, picking up the glass and turning it this way and that. Scott can't help but watch; the golden liquid seems to shimmer in the light of the kitchen, like somebody poured some of that edible glitter into it. "My father, Odin, _invented_ mead."

He takes a sip from the glass and then proceeds to tell Scott a rambling and incoherent account of said invention, punctuated by the occasional hiccup, and the even more occasional teary tangent about the people and places he'd loved that are now gone forever. Scott is finding himself becoming more and more uncomfortable the more and more Thor talks, because man, this is _really_ out of his wheelhouse. "And _that_," Thor announces, finally, slamming his glass down onto the tabletop, "is the story of the Infinity Stones."

It really hadn't been. In fact, Thor hadn't mentioned the stones even once during the - Scott glances at his watch - _hour and a half?_ they've been talking. "Uh, cool, thanks for that," he says instead of trying to get anything further from Thor, who has his head tilted back as far as it will go and is staring at something on the ceiling.

"Do you maybe want to, uh, take a nap or something?" Scott asks, because he definitely doesn't think Thor should have any more to drink, and because it looks like he's about to slide out of his chair, plus then Scott can go get somebody actually _familiar _with Thor to help.

Thor raises his head and blinks at Scott. "Hmmph, I am - I am - the- I was the Mighty Thor and I…" He pulls himself to his feet and Scott has to leap out of his own chair fast enough to make it flip over and slide across the floor in order to catch Thor before his knees buckle fully.

Oof. He is _much_ heavier than Scott was expecting. He definitely needs a _real_ Avenger here. "Um, computer lady?" he calls to the ceiling, "is there anyone besides me around?"

"Mr. Stark has been alerted and he and Dr. Banner are -"

The computer lady's explanation is interrupted by Tony Stark snapping, "Out of the way, Short Stack." Before he's even able to say anything, Scott finds himself getting herded out of the way by Stark and Banner, who each take one of Thor's massive arms. "Thor, buddy, you with us?" Stark asks, reaching over with his free hand to tap Thor's cheek.

Thor fixes his bleary gaze on Stark. "I was tellin' Kevin bout the stones," he explains, which isn't quite true of course but who's really keeping track of those sorts of things?

"It's Scott," Scott mutters, ignoring the incredulous look Stark gives him. "I _asked_ him about the Stones," he admits, gesturing helplessly to the god propped up between the two Avengers. "He didn't actually answer the question."

Stark and Banner share a worried look over Thor's head. "Okay, Thor, time to rest for a while," Banner says softly, then turns his attention to Scott. "Thank you for keeping an eye on him. I don't think we realized he was by himself."

Stark scowls. "We need to write a schedule. You want in, Tiny Tim?"

Scott takes a step backwards as Stark and Banner start the process of getting Thor over to the sofa. For his part, Thor is at least trying to help out, shuffling his feet and working hard to keep his balance. "Oh, me? To just. Like, hang out with him?" He guesses there's probably more to it than that.

They deposit Thor on the sofa with a shared grunt. "Go to sleep," Stark orders, "don't make me pull out the Thor-buster."

Thor snuffles. "No such thing," he argues weakly.

"Try me." Stark's voice is hard as stone. Even in his current state, Thor seems to realize that Stark isn't messing around, because he shifts to make himself more comfortable while Banner hands him a blanket.

"So, um, look, I know I'm not like, in the inner circle or anything, but I'm guessing this isn't normal?" Scott ventures. Any idiot could see that, honestly, and Scott is only _sometimes _an idiot.

Banner and Stark glance at each other. "Definitely not," Stark says at the same time Banner says, "Not like this." And then they tell him what had happened, about Thor's parents, and his sister, about Asgard. About his brother and not managing to kill Thanos before the Snap, about _actually _killing Thanos before he could tell them how to _reverse_ the Snap. About holing himself away in New Asgard with his beer and food and video games and loneliness and guilt.

Scott feels his actual _soul_ growing heavier as he listens. He had lost five years of his daughter's life, and that's bad enough. Thor has lost _everything_. "Whoa. That's… that sucks," Scott says when they're finished. "I mean. That _really _sucks."

"That's stating the obvious, but yeah, it does suck," Stark agrees. "So now you're on Team Thor. If one of us isn't with him, _you're_ with him, got it?" The way he says it makes Scott kind of feel like he's being knighted.

Or like he's a real Avenger. "I won't let you down, Iron Man," he says and doesn't salute because he doesn't _think _Stark would want him to. Stark _does_ manage an extremely impressive eye roll, though. Maybe he _should _have saluted.

"Yeah, okay," Stark sighs. "Just don't let him do anything stupid, got it?" Scott wants to ask what constitutes as _stupid_ but then decides that he can definitely figure that part out by himself.

"Yeah. Of course! I can, do you want me to stay now?" He points at the living room and then himself. "Because I can. I mean, I've been meaning to see what TV is like now."

"It sucks," Stark replies, "but knock yourself out. Not like it didn't suck before, too. Somebody'll come take over once we've had a couple more conversations." He claps his hands. "Sound good?"

Well, he'd volunteered, and he had wanted to be part of the team, the _real_ team, and so… what else can he say but, "Yeah, sounds good."? So that's what he says. And just like that, he's back alone with Thor and still no earthly idea what's actually going on.

So what else is new?


End file.
